Should McDonald’s Be Sold in Hospitals?

Tim Boyle/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — In the 2004 documentary Supersize Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock dined at McDonald’s three times daily for 30 days, an experiment that caused an increase in his body mass and cholesterol, mood swings and fat accumulation in his liver — an outcome that would make most doctors cringe. It may be surprising for some to learn that many hospitals have McDonald’s restaurants in their dining areas. Now the consumer advocacy group Corporate Accountability International (CAI) is pushing hospitals to ban the fast food giant.

The group recently sent aletter requesting the McDonald’s ban to nearly two dozen hospitals — all of which CAI says have McDonald’s restaurants — including the Cleveland Clinic and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. In the letter, CAI told the hospitals they were “fostering a food environment that promotes harm, not health.”

“We urge you to end your contract with McDonald’s and to take action to remove the McDonald’s restaurant from you hospital,” the letter stated.

Additionally, the group cited information from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, that “in decades to come, one in three children will develop type 2 diabetes as a result of diets high in McDonald’s-style junk food.”

A 2006 study in the journal Pediatrics, also cited in the CAI letter to hospitals, found that allowing McDonald’s to operate within hospitals unintentionally raises visitors’ perceptions of the “healthfulness” of McDonald’s food.

McDonald’s, which currently has 27 hospital sites, is not the only fast food chain with hospital locations, Men’s Fitness reports. But with McDonald’s long-term contracts with some medical centers, it’s hard to say if the letter will have any significant effect.

CAI has said, however, that some hospitals, including Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Vanderbilt Medical Center have terminated contracts with McDonald’s in the last few years.